Page 49 of Love Fast

NINETEEN

Rosey

I stay on the bus until the stop in town after my shift. The first place I’m going to check for Athena is the vet’s office to see if she’s been handed in. Then I’ll go check at home, do laundry, and figure out what to do about the ceiling in the cabin. Byron said he’d call Mike and Beth, but he’s got bigger things to worry about. The truth is, I want to make sure I have a place to stay tonight without having to rely on Byron. He shouldn’t feel any obligation to put a roof over my head, despite the way things have…shiftedsince last night. I want to be able to stand on my own two feet. I don’t want to have other people solve my problems. I want to figure this out for myself.

As I arrive at the vet, Donna is just putting up the Closed sign. She opens the door for me anyway.

“Hey, how was the storm for you?” she asks.

“Okay. A leaky roof. You?”

“A few things in the yard got tossed around. I’ve seen worse.”

“Athena—you know, the cat that adopted me—disappeared. She was with me during the storm but fled right after. I wondered if someone had brought her in.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry. No, no one brought her in. Honestly, we haven’t had any animals brought in at all. I thought there might be some injuries.” She shrugs. “Fred had some callouts to the ranches farther out of town. That’s it.” She closes the door behind her and locks up. “I’ll let you know if anyone brings her in tomorrow, though.”

“Thanks. You off work now?” I ask.

Her eyes grow wide and she smiles conspiratorially. “I am. I’m headed over to Valley Park.” She says it like I should know what that means. “Apparently a huge RV parked up there, just showed up out of nowhere. Marge says it’s so big and fancy, it must have cost more than a million dollars. I want to see it for myself.”

“Tourists?” I ask.

She leans forward. “No one knows. No one has seen anyone come or go from there. Marge says it’s the government, but I don’t see why it can’t be someone just wanting to spend some time in this beautiful town of ours.”

Her phone rings and she answers. We start to walk toward the market.

“Are you serious?” she says. “There are two? I’m definitely coming. I might just knock on the door and see who the hell is in there. Okay, I’ll see you in ten minutes.” She hangs up. “Did you hear that?” she asks. Before I can answer, she adds, “There’s two of ’em now. Two million-dollar RVs. Another one pulled up right next to the first.”

“That’s weird,” I say. “Could be tourists passing through on some kind of cross-country trip.”

“Right. But maybenot,” she says conspiratorially. “You wanna come see?”

A warm feeling nuzzles inside me at the thought of going with her. She likes me. And from what little I know of her, I like Donna, too. “I can’t,” I say. “I have to fix up the cabin. But thanks for asking. You’ll have to let me know what you find. Be careful.”

“Oh, I’m going with Marge. She’s used to hunting wild boar. I’ll be completely safe with her.”

Wild boar?Is that… a thing around here? I make a mental note to ask Byron when I see him.

“You don’t know where I might buy a dehumidifier, do you?” I ask.

“Go see Betty in the hardware store.” She nods her head to the left. “She’ll fix you up.”

* * *

Ron the taxidriver helps me bring the dehumidifier up the steps. Before I go inside, I check around the outside of the cabin for Athena.

“Athena!” I call. Maybe I’ll set out some food for her on the porch and see if that entices her back. “Athena!”

I wrestle the dehumidifier into my bedroom, which thankfully still has an intact ceiling, then check the pot I left under the leak. I emptied the overflowing pot this morning, before I went to the Colorado Club. There’s been no rain since, but I expected residual water to drip through the morning.

But the pan’s almost dry.

I glance up at the ceiling. The wet patch is still there, but it doesn’t look as bad as it did this morning. Maybe the dry mountain air is speeding the process along.

I plug in the dehumidifier and it hums to life. Then I drag the bedding from the pile on the floor, put it in the washing machine, and start a cycle. There’s too much bedding to fit it all in one load, but I’m sure I can get enough washed and dried for me to have something for tonight. Maybe I should have bought a sleeping bag from Snail Trail.

I’m not sure I want to sleep right under the leak, even if it has dried up. Like Byron said, there’s no telling if the entire ceiling is going to collapse. But there’s no room for the bed frame to fit somewhere else in the room.

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